


so i let my walls come down, down

by thundersquall



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 21:17:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2522096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundersquall/pseuds/thundersquall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jonathan Toews doesn't play hockey, but still has great hands, and Patrick Kane is wooed through food he can't pronounce. AU with chef!Tazer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so i let my walls come down, down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ultramarinus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultramarinus/gifts).



> This was inspired by Jen and Nene, after we saw pics of Tazer in his 4th Period photoshoot ([see](http://www.thefourthperiod.com/photos/toews/tfp_jt_covershoot_003.jpg): [example](http://www.thefourthperiod.com/photos/toews/tfp_jt_covershoot_001.jpg)), and started tossing ideas for an AU with chef!Tazer around. It was meant to be a short cracky drabble, but I'm terrible at writing crack, and then I don't know how it turned into this monster.
> 
> So thanks to Jen and Nene for inspiring me I guess, and to Cathy for naming Tazer's restaurant and helping me with all the French, and biggest thanks to Nene for the summary and beta-ing this for me - on her birthday, no less! 
> 
> This is my first foray into writing hockey fic; apologies if it's not up to standard, and any errors are entirely mine. I am aware that Michelin does not grade Canadian restaurants, and also that Masterchef Canada didn't begin until early this year, but ~handwavy things~ I suppose, please forgive me for taking literary license with these!
> 
> This is my birthday gift for you Nene :* YOU'RE A CHAMP BABE

It's been a few weeks into the off-season when Patrick gets dragged by Sharpy to this new restaurant that's just opened in the Downtown Magnificent Mile Marriott Hotel, some fancy French place that Sharpy swears serves the best shit ever, _dude_ , and he _has_ to go because Abby's been dying to try the food there. Truth be told, Patrick isn’t really into all that haute cuisine stuff; he'd much rather be hunkering back down in his condo and drowning himself in greasy takeout and deep dish pizzas, but when Sharpy pulls the Abby card, he can't say no.

"Fine," he says, because he has nothing to do anyway. Nothing except being stuck here in Chicago, with Sharpy. Not that it's a problem, to be honest; it beats being alone and watching replays of their loss in Game 7 to the fucking Kings, and those terrible last fifteen seconds when Patrick had been speeding towards the goal, a fucking wide open net, and _missed_. He'd gone on a real bender the next two days after the game, drinking himself into a stupor (at home, not pub crawling outside; he's learned his lesson somewhat), until Sharpy had turned up with Abby in tow and, between the two of them, had more or less pummeled Patrick into some form of normality. Also, Abby had let him stay over for the last two weeks, nursed him through the worst hangover he's ever had, and allowed him to be around her girls even in the state he was in. He owes her a meal, at the very least.

"Fine," he says again. "But only because Abby wants it. I'll take her out, wine and dine her – she deserves it."

"Stop hitting on my wife," Sharpy says, barely even looking up from his iPad where he's trying to book a table for them all.

"She deserves to be hit on by someone awesome like me, I still don’t know how you managed to bag her," Patrick snipes back.

"Welcome back, Peekaboo, glad you seem all _yourself_ now, so maybe you can take your ass out of my home and get back to yours, if you promise not to drink yourself stupid again," Sharpy says absently, fingers still swiping across his iPad.

Patrick can't help but grin. Yeah. He does owe the Sharps something good.

___

 

Turns out Coup de Chapeau (and what sort of name is that, really, it should be some sort of law that you don’t have to go to eat at places whose names you can't even pronounce, Patrick thinks) has a waiting list miles long, and is fully booked up to two months later.

"What's the big deal with that place, anyway?" Patrick asks. "Chicago is full of obnoxious French restaurants, man, ask Abby to pick somewhere else she'd like to try."

"The chef at Coup de Chapeau's supposed to be really good," Sharpy says. He pronounces it in a very Anglicised way, his Cs and Ps all hard, and it's not like Patrick knows how the damn word's supposed to sound, but he's pretty damned sure French doesn’t sound like that, anyway. He opens his mouth to chirp Sharpy a bit about it, but then Sharpy adds, "I could ask TJ. Maybe he could get us a table."

"TJ as in TJ Oshie? Oshie from the _Blues_?"

"How many TJ Oshies do you know?"

"What the fuck even does Oshie have to do with Coup – Coup – this restaurant?"

Sharpy shrugs. "He's the one who told me about it, you know? The chef's a good friend of his, they were college buddies or something. He's been like, telling all the teams about it, urging people to go. I guess I just mentioned it in passing to Abby, and she went and checked out the chef and his restaurant reviews or whatever, and it got her all hyped up. So I _have_ to get us a table there, by hook or by crook."

Patrick gapes a little at this. TJ Oshie, college buddies with some apparently fairly famous chef, urging people to go to his buddy's restaurant. Wonders will never cease. He shakes his head as Sharpy gets up off the couch and heads towards the stairs, presumably to grab his phone and call Oshie or something.

"Right," Sharpy says about thirty minutes later when he wanders back in; Patrick's sort of nodding off, the warmth of the May sun in Sharpy's home making him feel a little sleepy, so he's just stretched out on the couch and lazily rubbing a hand on his stomach, shirt rucked up like a slob. "TJ called his friend, he's got it all settled. We have a reservation for this Saturday at 8 pm."

"Okay," Patrick sighs, not really listening.

"You need to dress nice, Peeks."

"Oh god," groans Patrick. "It really is one of those hoity-toity places where everyone's got to wear a tie and use about ten different forks, isn’t it."

Sharpy shoots him a look of alarm. "Did you really just say - _hoity-toity_?"

"You know what, I'm just going to nap," Patrick says, and then flips over so Sharpy can't see his red face. So he's spent the last week at the Sharps' watching downloads of BBC dramas, so what, it's not his fucking fault he finds that guy who plays Heathcliff kind of hot.

He falls asleep before he knows it, and when Abby wakes him for dinner there's a crick in his neck from sleeping on the couch and a little patch of drool beneath his face that she laughs at for about five minutes. Patrick half-considers turning up for their dinner on Saturday in ripped jeans and a Blackhawks tank, just for that.

___

 

He doesn’t, of course. He moves back to his condo on the Thursday and cringes at the absolute mess it's in – empty bottles and beer cans everywhere, takeout boxes mouldering on the tables and in the kitchen. He can afford to call for a cleaning service, but he doesn’t. He spends all day cleaning up his home, dumping all the shit in trash bags, and by the time he's done at the end of the day he goes to bed achey and weary but in a _good_ way, not the same bonecrushing weariness he'd had after their loss (after his fucking _miss_ ). He bums around on Friday, gaming a little, dicking around on his laptop, but he doesn’t watch any of his replays.

He dresses in a sharp suit on Saturday evening, charcoal grey, deep blue tie, slicks his curls back, and heads to his lobby to wait for Sharpy. Patrick has to admit: he feels good like this, after Sharpy and Abby had taken him in and forced him to function normally again, and it feels good to dress up and go out, to look forward to a civilized night on the town, and pretend that the last month never happened. He's pleased that Sharpy had offered to swing by and pick him up; that means he will be the designated driver for the night, and Patrick can sneak a few more glasses of good wine. Not to the point of drunkenness, obviously. He's not going to do that to himself or to the Sharps again this summer. Just maybe to the very edge of tipsiness, where everything is warm and soft and blurred at the edges, so he can relax and really enjoy his first night out since their disastrous loss.

"You look good," Abby enthuses, when they pull up and he gets into the backseat. She twists around to look at him and reaches out to straighten his tie. "This colour is great on you, Pat. Brings out your eyes."

"Yeah?" Patrick grins. He'll never get tired of anyone telling him he looks good.

"Yeah," Abby grins back, and then Sharpy cuts in with a "Stop flirting with my teammate, and don't flirt with the chef later either, babe."

"Pat's like a _son_ to me, are you kidding?" Abby asks scornfully, and Patrick – Patrick has given up trying to correct her way too many times over the years ( _not your son, god, I'm not_ that _babyfaced, say I'm your brother or something, jesus_ , and Abby never listens, of course), so instead he just asks, "What, how is Abby into this chef before we've even had a taste of his cooking?"

"She googled him, I told you," Sharpy says.

"Tall, dark and handsome, just the way I like 'em," Abby says, mock-swooning onto Sharpy's shoulder.

"You're married to Chicago's sexiest athlete, in case you forgot," Sharpy grumbles. "I've got a monopoly on tall dark and handsome in this town."

"Man, are you ever going to get over that dumb Victoria's Secret award from like, ages ago?" asks Patrick.

"Never," Sharpy says, cheery and triumphant.

___

 

The restaurant's actually – nice, to Patrick's surprise; he's been expecting someplace stuffy and ostentatious, with snooty waiters and overbearing diners, but instead it feels warm, cosy. There are just two forks at his place setting instead of the ten he'd imagined it to have, and he knows exactly what both are for, thank you very much. The lighting is low as it tends to be in restaurants such as these, but the kitchen is open plan and lights are blazing behind the glass wall where diners can look in and watch the various chefs and assistants as they roast, carve, bake, sauce, plate. In contrast to the deep red brick interior walls and heavy wood of the restaurant proper, the kitchen is all steel and glass, modern and gleaming. Somehow, it manages to work and meld well together with the decor, rather than clash.

There are too many people in the kitchen; Patrick can't see anyone who might be tall, dark and handsome inside. Not that he's, you know, actively _looking_.

There are a handful of local celebrities in the restaurant, some of whom recognize Sharpy and Patrick and get up to exchange greetings and shake hands. There's a writer from the Chicago Tribune, a WGN newscaster, Wesley Wright from the Cubs, and Scottie Pippen. He goes over to their table once he sees they're seated, claps Patrick on the back and gives Sharpy a bump on the fist.

"What are you doing here?" Patrick asks, once the greetings are out of the way.

"Eating, man," Pippen says. "The food here's great. First time here?"

"Yeah."

"Been hearing good stuff about this place since it opened, so I came a few weeks ago. Been back here every week since then."

"Every week?" Patrick repeats in disbelief.

"Yeah. I don't really go for this French stuff usually, but who cares when the food's this good, right?"

Abby is practically bouncing in her seat when Pippen returns to his table. "My god, I can't wait," she says, looking down at her menu. "I've never heard or seen a single bad review about this place. That chef must be some sort of food magician."

"Yeah, maybe he puts spells into his food to keep people coming back. Imprints his food on them, you know," Patrick says. Both Sharpy and Abby shoot him identical looks – a look that clearly says _I am so judging you for your taste in teen movies/books_ , and he subsides, choosing to look at his menu instead. There's a tasting menu, and Patrick turns up his nose at that right away. If he's going out to eat, he wants a proper meal, not tiny bites artfully arranged on pretty spoons that will leave him starving for a good pizza when he gets home. Yeah, he knows all about haute cuisine all right, and it's not for him. He says so out loud, and Abby huffs at him.

"I'll order for you then," she says, and Patrick shrugs, because he's realized that the rest of the menu is in French, and really, he's a hockey god extraordinaire, he's not about to embarrass himself in public by trying to curl his tongue around French syllables and potentially ordering something completely gross. He's happy to let Sharpy be the one embarrassing himself, he thinks, watching as Sharpy tries, and fails, to pronounce _moules à la crème Normande_.

In the end, Abby orders for them all, and she does it by pointing to the menu without attempting to pronounce anything. She gets steak frites for their mains, and chooses escargots, duck rillettes, and foie gras for entrees.

"Jesus, Abby," Patrick groans when the entrees arrive. "Snails, really?"

He absolutely refuses to touch the snails when Abby offers, holding one out with the tongs, _still in its fucking shell_ , god, it's a wonder Patrick hasn’t lost his appetite. Sharpy has a couple, though, and both he and Abby declare them absolutely delicious. Patrick keeps his head down determinedly so he doesn’t have to see his friends chewing snails, and cuts into the foie gras. He's had foie gras before and he likes it, but Sharpy narrows his eyes at him and says, "You won't eat snails, but you'll eat politically incorrect fattened goose liver?"

"How the hell is this politically incorrect?" Patrick snaps.

Sharpy shakes his head. "Google it, man," he says, and watches with barely-concealed disgust as Patrick eats the first slice. And suddenly Patrick can't be assed about Sharpy anymore, or the gross snails, or anything, because the foie gras is practically melting on his tongue, rich and buttery, the duck jus dark and powerful on his palate. Patrick can't help but shut his eyes as he swallows. Shit. This is heaven.

"You look like you're having an orgasm, Peekaboo, snap out of it."

"Shut up," Patrick says, which is about the best comeback he can muster when he's just had _the best damned foie gras he's ever put into his mouth_. "This is the best damned foie gras I've ever put into my mouth."

Abby looks delighted. "I knew this place was worth it," she says, beaming.

___

 

The rest of the dinner continues in much the same way: the duck rillettes are excellent, smooth as butter and not too salty like some Patrick's had at other restaurants. The steaks are perfectly cooked, marbled through with fat, and so tender Patrick barely has to chew.

"Okay," he says, finally, when they're done with the food and he has a ramekin of what is possibly the most beautifully-caramelised crème brulee in the world in front of him. "Okay, the food here is great. More than great. Grand, in fact."

Abby grins. "Want to tell the chef that personally?"

"What do you mean?"

She tips her chin behind him. "He's there, look, talking to Wesley Wright."

Patrick turns, and there's indeed a man at Wright's table, tall in his chef's whites, shaking hands with Wright and smiling. He turns just then, towards Patrick's table, a smile still on his lips, and Patrick – he sits right up. He'd thought Abby was exaggerating, what with the tall dark and handsome bullshit, but she isn’t. Patrick watches as the chef makes his way around the dining area, stopping at each table to exchange a few words with every patron, shaking hands. Even at a distance, Patrick can see the line of his bicep straining under his crisp white jacket.

Fuck. Patrick bites his lip, trying not to stare any harder than necessary. Hockey god, he's a hockey god. He can be calm, no matter how hot a guy is, or how long it's been since he got laid. With a vague pang, he realizes that he can't even remember the last time he got laid. Way before the playoffs, that's for certain.

"His name is Jonathan Toes," Abby whispers as the chef moves closer to their table.

"Toes? What the fuck, Abby," Patrick says, and thankfully he can feel his half-boner wilting away at that name.

"It's spelt T-O-E-W-S," Abby says, frowning. "I have no idea how to pronounce that."

"Yeah, I think it's Toes. Or maybe Toe-ez," Sharpy says, frowning as well.

Before they can say anything more, Jonathan Something has reached their table. He reaches for Abby's hand first, shakes it firmly. "Hi, I'm Jonathan Toews, executive chef here." He pronounces it as _Tayvs_ , and for a moment Patrick can feel the exact same thought zing through all their minds: _Ah, so that's how it's pronounced._ "Thank you for coming tonight. I hope the food was satisfactory?"

"More than satisfactory," Abby says. "It was great."

Jonathan smiles at her, and turns to Sharpy next. "Mr. Sharp, welcome," he says, shaking his hand, and then offers his hand to Patrick. "And Mr. Kane, of course, glad to have you here."

His hand is big – big and calloused, dry and hot under Patrick's palm, exactly like how a chef's hand should be, except maybe bigger, Patrick doesn’t know, except that all of a sudden he has a flash of those large hands holding him at the hips, and the dining room seems way too hot. Jonathan is staring down at him, not smiling anymore, but just looking at him, his eyes dark brown and intense, and Patrick can't tear his eyes or hand away. He has no idea how long he sits there, holding on to Jonathan's hand and staring right back at him, until Sharpy coughs, and the moment is broken, Jonathan dropping his hand like it's suddenly burnt him and tearing his eyes away from Patrick's face like he's having to rip a piece of his skin off. He catches Abby from the corner of his eye, sitting ramrod straight and her mouth working in a way that means she's chewing the insides of her cheeks and trying not to laugh, and feels his face start to burn.

He stays resolutely silent as Jonathan and Sharpy chat a bit, and Jesus, even Jonathan's voice is hot, even though he talks in a weird sort of monotone. "I'm glad you liked it," Jonathan's saying, and Patrick pictures him giving orders in the kitchen in that deep dry voice, and – no, he needs to stop thinking of Jonathan giving any sort of orders at all.

"Yeah. TJ came through for us. It was good of you to pull a table for us at such short notice, though, even if we did go through TJ. You guys been buddies long, huh?"

"Yes, we went to the same college, played for our college hockey team together. Of course, he went pro after that, and I just went on to cook."

That makes Patrick look up. "You played hockey?" he asks, eyes wide, and holds his breath as Jonathan turns back to him, those eyes as intense as before.

"I love hockey," he says. "Watched you guys play throughout the season, actually. Great job."

"Thanks," Patrick says, deflating again, because he remembers that no, it most certainly wasn’t a great job, especially not from him, Patrick fucking Kane missing an open net and losing them the playoffs – but then Jonathan bends low so he's on eye level with Patrick, and suddenly Patrick can't be fucked anymore to think about his shitty last game. It's hard to think when a hot guy is giving you a stare that looks like it could laser your brain into a puddle.

"I mean it," he says; he really does sound sincere rather than sycophantic, his voice suddenly warm and low rather than monotonous. "I think you guys played excellent throughout the season. There's no need to beat yourself up over one game. There's always next year."

Jesus, it's like he can read Patrick's mind with his laser stare. Just in case, Patrick's quick to shut off any embarrassing thoughts like _god, you're hot_ , and _shit, those fucking arms_ , and _when do you close, because I'd like to take you back to my place and fuck you for the entire weekend_. And – oh, that last thought is not good, not good at all.

"Thanks," he finally mumbles, when he's managed to find his voice.

Jonathan straightens up and nods at all of them again. "Thanks again for coming, glad you enjoyed it," he says, and his voice is back to its usual flatness. "If you ever want to come back and can't get a table, feel free to call me." He pulls a business card out of his pocket and scribbles something on it. "My number's on there."

It isn’t until he's walked away, Patrick staring dumbly after him and noticing the way his white pants pull tight over his ass – and holy shit, it's an ass Patrick can only dream of – that Sharpy and Abby both explode into laughter, and Patrick snaps back to reality.

"If you could only see your face!" Abby giggles.

"Looks like our little Peekaboo has got a crush," Sharpy crows.

"Looks like the crush might be mutual," Abby says, tipping her head at the business card in Patrick's hand, and that's when Patrick realizes – he's the only one Jonathan's given his card to, and he turns it over, to see a cellphone number written in thick black ink just between the lines "Jonathan Toews" and "Coup de Chapeau".

He slides the card into his pocket and finishes his dessert, determinedly not looking at Sharpy or Abby and not responding to their chirping, but he ponders over what Jonathan had said, about his season, and amazingly he feels a little lighter, somehow, like what Jonathan's told him has lifted some of the weight of his failure off his shoulders. He _did_ play well all season, well enough to help the team get into the playoffs in the first place; there _is_ next year, and Patrick is nothing if not confident in his abilities. He knows he can get there again next year. He just needed a stranger, someone who wasn’t Sharpy or Abby, to put it into perspective for him.

When he finally pays the bill and they're walking out of the restaurant, he takes one last look at the kitchen through the thick glass wall.

Jonathan's nowhere to be seen, to his disappointment. Oh well.

___

 

The thing is, Patrick might have forgotten about Jonathan in a few days, might have found a couple of casual hookups over the summer and been done with it, except that he makes the momentous mistake of googling Jonathan Toews.

Jonathan is 26, born in Winnipeg, speaks both English and French fluently, and he did indeed play hockey with TJ when they were in the University of North Dakota. By all accounts he was a hockey prodigy, until a car accident in his second year of university left him with a concussion and a busted leg, and that was the end of hockey for him. He didn’t seem to let it deter him, though; he simply diverted his talent and intense focus into cooking, something which he said in interviews had interested him as long as hockey had, and talked about how he'd cook for his family and friends and college roommates, testing new recipes on them. And then his mother had signed him up for Masterchef Canada just for a joke, but he'd gone on and and _won_ the damn thing, sailing through the season with ease, and almost overnight Jonathan became a media darling, a Canadian sensation. He appeared in various interviews and magazines, always polite, always modest, always serious about his food.

He'd returned to Winnipeg and opened his first restaurant, and in just his second year of business his restaurant had received a Michelin star. It was a big deal for Winnipeg, which had never had a Michelin-starred chef, and a big deal for Jonathan himself, who was one of the youngest-ever chefs to be awarded a star. He'd moved on to Miami and opened another restaurant there, which also won a star and was endorsed by Sidney fucking Crosby – why had Patrick never known that, and how many hockey connections does this guy have anyway? Three years in Miami, and he'd finally gone on to Chicago and opened his third restaurant there. His good looks hadn’t been a liability to his career either, obviously. He's done photoshoots, commercials, even some modeling, all of which have raised his profile, and Patrick spends an entire day searching for as many pictures and videos as he can find on the internet.

Winnipeg had even named a lake after him – Toews Lake – and Patrick wants to snort when he reads that, because _Canadians_ , god, but then he's distracted by a picture of Jonathan from a [shoot for Men's Health magazine](http://www.revivify.net/linkim/hawkeyecandy/toews04.jpg).

So he's young, gorgeous, some kind of culinary genius, and wildly successful in his field – Patrick can totally deal with that, because, just see the similarities between them, please, he's young, hot and successful too, and a hockey god to boot.

He reads yet another interview, one when Jonathan had just arrived in Chicago, talking about how he feels he can do even better, how there are still heights left for him to scale in the culinary world, blah blah. And then there's a question: _Why Chicago, though? Why not a city more associated with fine dining, maybe New York or LA?_

 _I like Chicago._ Patrick reads Jonathan's answer, printed neatly on his laptop screen. _I've been here many times, and there's just something about the city that's great, vibrant. I love the feel here. Besides, I'm a huge fan of the Blackhawks._

_Really, the Hawks? Not a fan of the Jets, then?_

_Don’t get me wrong, the Jets are my hometown team, they'll always be a part of my heart. But I enjoy watching the Hawks play – their energy, their flow, it's amazing. They've got a great team now, and they're only going to get better._

_Do you have a favourite player on the team?_

_Yeah. Patrick Kane, of course. (laughs) Phenomenal stickhandling skills. I can't get enough of watching his hands, you know?_

Damn, Patrick thinks, sinking back into his couch, feeling his face and chest grow hot.

___

 

In the end, it's that interview that gives him the courage to take out Jonathan's business card and call him. That, and a week of marathoning the season of Masterchef that Jonathan had appeared in. There's one particular episode where Jonathan had been preparing a peach and mint mousse, face more intense than Patrick's ever thought it could get, the whole focus of his eyes and mind and graceful hands narrowed in on the mixing bowl in front of him as he whisked egg whites into fluff, while the camera zoomed in up close to the way he'd licked a dollop of whipped cream off the back of his hand and then run his tongue over his lips to catch anything he'd missed.

Patrick's jerked off so much to that, he thinks his dick might start to chafe.

The phone rings, and rings. No one picks up. Patrick glances at the clock on his wall and groans inwardly. It's 6 pm on a Sunday; of course Jonathan would be busy at his restaurant, perhaps moving from station to station with the same easy grace he'd moved from sink to stove on Masterchef, perhaps giving orders to his sous chefs and kitchen assistants in that cool low voice.

And then, as if on cue, there's a click, and Jonathan's voice – recorded, but still fucking hot, somehow – says, "Hi, this is Jonathan Toews. I'm not available now, but leave your name and number and I'll get right back to you. Thanks."

It's the most bland, generic voice mail message ever, but – shit. Patrick's dick twitches again, and he's really got to train it to stay down, or it'll be rearing at every mere thought or mention of Jonathan, as if it's been conditioned to.

"Um," he starts awkwardly, "hey, Jonathan. Jonny." (He'd found out from his Masterchef-athon that Jonathan preferred to be called Jonny.) "I mean, uh, Mr. Toews. This is Patrick here. Uh, Patrick Kane. Chicago Blackhawks? Uh, yeah, so, I was thinking of coming into your restaurant again, and you said to call if I couldn’t get a table, so – here I am. Calling. Uh. Yeah. You can call me back, if you – need more info." He rattles off his number, and continues: "So, uh, thanks. Hope to see you again."

He hangs up, and then shoves both his face and his phone into his pillow and screams into it. Smooth, Kaner, real smooth. Hockey god extraordinaire, and he can’t even pull a guy properly. Jonny will never want to see him or speak to him again. He'll change his favourite player to someone else – Patrick imagines him in a new interview, saying things like _Yeah, I used to like Patrick Kane, but he turned out to be a loser, so now my favourite player is Brandon Saad_. Or, god forbid, he'd start being a fan of _Sharpy_ , and blab about it to every magazine in Chicago, and Sharpy will never let him live it down –

The phone rings, making him jump, and he fumbles for it under his pillow, pressing the answer button and saying "Hello?" breathlessly before he even thinks of looking at his caller ID. And of course, of fucking course, it will have to be –

"Hey, Jonny Toews here. I got your voicemail."

"Hey," Patrick says, swallowing, trying not to sound like he's just been having a freakout over Jonny. "Thanks for calling back, Mr. Toews, I know it must be busy for you right now."

"No problem," Jonny says. "And look, just call me Jonny. It feels weird whenever people call me Mr. Toews, you know?"

"Yeah, sure – Jonny," Patrick says, tripping only a little over the name. Get your shit together, Kaner, he tells himself firmly.

"So – you need a table? When and what time?"

"Uh, I was thinking, tomorrow? 8 pm?" Patrick's making this up on the spot, but yeah, tomorrow suddenly sounds good to him. He just wants to see Jonny again, as soon as possible.

"Sure. How many in your party?"

Oh god. Patrick's stumped. He hasn’t thought of bringing anyone, of course, has no one to bring with him, but if he tells Jonny he's going to be on his own, he'll look super pathetic, and even worse, _obvious_ as hell. Then there's no way Jonny won't realize Patrick's going to his restaurant and spending a bomb just to ogle him.

"Two," he says, decisively. He'll try to find someone else to come with him, even Sharpy if he has no choice. That's his last resort, though. He's not quite looking forward to Sharpy chirping him throughout dinner about this… crush thing.

"Oh." Patrick has no idea if it's his imagination, but Jonny's voice sounds lower, quieter, maybe even with an edge of frostiness to it, somehow. "Bringing – a girlfriend, huh?"

"No," Patrick says quickly. "No, not a girlfriend. No girlfriend, ha ha."

There's a short silence, and then Jonny says, "I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have asked, it's none of my business anyway."

"It's not like that!" Patrick says. "I'm coming with one of the guys – Andrew Shaw – look, you're a Hawks fan aren’t you, you know Shawsy, right? He told me he'd heard of your restaurant, and wanted to go. That's all, man." The moment the words are out of his mouth, he holds the phone away so Jonny won't hear anything, and smacks his mouth with his hand. Shit, shit, his big fucking mouth, now he's got to somehow get Shawsy in on this. And anyway, why is he trying to justify his dinner partners to Jonny, like Jonny's his _boyfriend_ or something?

He puts the phone back to his ear. Jonny's saying something, cut off halfway, but the frostiness has left his voice, and he sounds normal again. " – can be done, looking forward to seeing him in our restaurant, of course. I'll put the reservation under your name, Mr. Kane."

"Sure," Patrick says, relieved. "And look, man – call me Patrick, or Kaner. None of that mister stuff, it's as weird for me as it probably is for you."

Jonny laughs then – a real laugh, rolling through the phone into Patrick's ear, and god, Patrick would happily do whatever Jonny wanted, just to hear that laugh again. "Sure. I might prefer calling you Lil Peekaboo, though."

"Cut it out, man," he says, but he's laughing too, and suddenly the tension's broken, and everything feels good, easy, as if he's been talking to Jonny for ages. "Thanks, I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Yeah," Jonny says, and then just before he hangs up, he adds, "I'm really looking forward to seeing you again, Lil Peekaboo."

Patrick's left looking stupefied at his phone, and – there's no help for it – he's got to go into his bathroom now and rub one out, because Jonny Toews fucking called him Lil Peekaboo. He's so fucking far gone.

___

 

By some miracle, Shawsy's got nothing on the next evening, and Patrick manages to convince him to leave his girl at home and meet him for dinner instead. On the minus side, he'd had to tell Shawsy _everything_ in order to persuade him, and Shawsy spends the entire dinner laughing himself red in the face every time Patrick jerks in his seat whenever he sees someone in white move near their table.

"I can't believe I have to be your wingman, Kaner," he says. "What, you don't know how to pick someone up?"

"Shut the fuck up," Patrick hisses. "I just – look, I told you, I don’t want to be so obvious, all right? I've only met him once. We barely exchanged five minutes of conversation."

"Wait till the guys hear about this," Shawsy says, still laughing.

"If you open your mouth about this to anyone in the locker room, I swear to god, Shawsy, I'm going to cut your balls off and use them as pucks."

"Woah, violent, Kaner," Shawsy says, holding his hands out as if warding Patrick off from his precious balls. "Seriously, dude. Stop fucking around and just ask him out already. How many people can you trick into coming to this restaurant with you every week, anyway? He'll catch on eventually. Either that or he'll think you're a giant slut, coming in with a different guy each week."

Patrick feels his ears burn. Fuck, that's a horrifying thought. He doesn’t want Jonny to think he's putting it all around town.

"Yeah, so do something about it," Shawsy continues. "I mean, you used to pull chicks all the damn time, Kaner. How different can a dude be?"

"I dunno, man, chicks seem easier," Patrick mumbles. He's been out for a while now, long enough that no one in or out of the NHL seems to give any more fucks, but while he'd continued dating girls openly (hey, sex is sex, and Patrick still likes girls as much as boys, okay?), he'd never outright dated a guy, had never gone beyond rushed blowjobs or quickies with guys whom he'd quietly picked up in gay bars and would never see again. Jonny is different. Jonny _feels_ different, even though Patrick barely knows him. He doesn’t want to mess this up before it's even begun.

"I don’t even know if he likes guys," Patrick says, and then Shawsy opens his mouth to reply, except his eyes drift to a point over Patrick's shoulder and he just says, "Is that your chef guy?"

Patrick turns, and sure enough, it's Jonny, striding over to their table, smiling and nodding at diners along the way, looking as put-together as ever in his starched white uniform, the pants pulling tight along the muscles of his thighs as he walks. Patrick has to pinch his own thigh, hard, to stop himself popping another boner right there.

"Hey," Jonny says, putting a hand on Patrick's shoulder. Patrick can feel the warmth of his hand bleed through the fabric of his suit, all the way to his skin. "Glad you could make it."

"Yeah, me too," Patrick says, and then turns to Shawsy. "This is Andrew Shaw, you know of him, don't you? Shawsy, Jonny here is a Blackhawks fan."

"Good taste," Shawsy grins as he extends his hand; Jonathan lifts his from Patrick's shoulder to shake it, but before Patrick even has time to mourn the loss of the weight of Jonny's large hand on his body, Jonny drops it back onto his shoulder, slightly lower this time, a warm soft pressure on his shoulderblade.

Jonny and Shawsy chat a couple of minutes, about the season and a couple of Shawsy's plays that Jonny had remembered, about the food, and then suddenly Jonny's squeezing the muscle of his shoulder gently and letting go. "I've got to get back to the kitchen, but thanks for coming. Dessert's on the house, gentlemen."

"Oh, dude, no, it's okay, you don't have to – " Patrick says, as Shawsy starts up his own protests as well.

"Don't worry, it's not a big deal. Enjoy it, you both." He smiles at them, and then before he steps away from their table, he turns the full force of his smile onto Patrick. "Good to see you again, Patrick. You'll be coming again, I hope?"

"I – uh – yeah. Yeah," Patrick stammers eloquently, and then Jonny's gone, striding back to the kitchen. Patrick may have sneaked another look at that ass, but he'll never admit it.

"Yeah, you know what, I don’t think you have anything to worry about," Shawsy says drily. "Pretty sure he's into guys, the way he couldn’t take his hand off you."

"Shut the fuck up," Patrick repeats – and really, has Jonny reduced his ability for witty comebacks to zero forever? – and Shawsy starts laughing again.

___

 

Patrick ends up going to Coup de Chapeau – alone – six more times over the next two weeks. He makes a half-hearted attempt to get Sharpy and Abby along, after his dinner with Shawsy, but to his annoyance, they'd both refused. "I'm not going to be your support pillar while you find your balls and decide to ask him out, man," Sharpy had said, and Patrick _really_ couldn't stand to sit through another dinner with Shawsy laughing his ass off at his every movement, and no way in hell was he going to get another one of the guys involved in this, so he's had no choice but to go on his own.

It's not so bad, not really. Jonny never asks him again if he's bringing someone, or even why he keeps coming on his own, so Patrick figures that he probably just thinks Patrick likes the food. Which, okay, he does. He must have eaten his way through the entire menu by now, and while there are some things he'll never touch, like the snails and the _cuisses de Grenouille_ \- fucking frogs' legs, Jonny had explained calmly, as if it was even _normal_ to eat that shit, and even Jonny's delicious French accent as he said the name of the dish to Patrick hadn’t been enough to convince him to go for it – he's game for most of it. He even sits through the entire tasting menu the sixth time he's there. Jonny had promised him he'd like it, and he did like it. He's coming to the conclusion that he'd probably like almost anything Jonny comes up with.

Not the snails or the frogs, though, never ever.

Jonny spares more time for him each time, though, eventually sitting at his table with him from the fourth time he's there. They talk about Jonny's cooking, and about hockey, and Jonny tells him about his accident, but there's no bitterness in his voice. "I lost hockey, but I got cooking," he says, shrugging, and Patrick tells him, "You're fucking world class in cooking," and delights in the smile that grows on Jonny's face.

By his sixth visit, they've grown comfortable enough even through the short minutes of their table chitchat to talk about their childhoods, drop mentions of their families, engage in some friendly chirping. Patrick doesn’t give a damn what Jonny talks about, to be honest, as long as he never stops talking.

"You speak French fluently, don’t you?" he asks, once.

"Yeah," Jonny replies. "My mom is Quebecois." He arches an eyebrow at Patrick. "Why, do you want to hear me speak it?"

"No," Patrick says, a little too quickly, but no is right. No is right, if he wants to stop himself from getting a stiffie in the middle of the restaurant, right across from Jonny, like some horny teenager.

"How did you know that, anyway?"

Patrick blinks and very deliberately does not look at Jonny when he replies. "I, uh, may have googled you?"

He knows he's getting red – it's a travesty, his fucking face, he turns red easier than a traffic light – but to his surprise, Jonny just laughs softly. "Oh yeah? I was wondering how you knew I was a Hawks fan too. So you've been checking up on me?"

"I have to, don't I?" Patrick snipes. "Gotta make sure the hands preparing my food are decent."

"Really now." Jonny sounds amused, but when Patrick looks up at him again, his eyes are locked on Patrick, warm and pleased. "Am I up to your standards, then? Are my hands good enough for you, Patrick?"

"I – yes. Yes." It could just be some gentle ribbing, just Jonny being an asshole about Patrick's bitching, but the way he says it, low and somehow intimate – it couldn’t sound further from teasing if he'd tried. Maybe the _other_ sort of teasing, yeah, the kind that gets Patrick all hot and bothered, but not the usual chirping. Patrick has no idea how the conversation took this turn, and he surreptitiously pinches his thigh again, making it hurt, focusing on the pain so his traitorous dick won't react to Jonny. He's been doing this so often, he's pretty sure he's developing a hockey-worthy bruise there.

Jonny's voice dips lower. "So, do I please you?"

Patrick drops his knife; it clatters against his plate loudly, and a couple of diners turn to stare. He picks it up again, fingers clumsy and trembling, and when he finally finds his voice, it's shaking as much as his fingers are. "Yeah. I'd say – yeah."

"Good," Jonny says, sounding incredibly pleased and dark and sweet, like thick caramel. "Well then." He stands, abruptly, and Patrick almost drops his cutlery again when Jonny puts a hand on the back of Patrick's neck, over the collar of his shirt. The tips of his fingers just graze above the collar, ghosting across the strip of skin between it and the curls at the back of his head. "I'm glad." Then he leans down, mouth close to Patrick's ear, and says, softly, " _Bonne nuit, je suis content que tu sois venu_."

He straightens and turns, walking off as if nothing had happened.

"Jesus shit fuck shit, what the actual fuck," Patrick says out loud to himself, stunned.

He has no idea what Jonny said, but it doesn’t fucking matter, not with that deep voice murmuring French in a way that makes it sound so fucking filthy, not when Patrick could feel Jonny's breath wafting across his ear and cheek, his mouth _so close_ to his skin.

He finishes his meal so fast it's a wonder he doesn’t choke, and then he's racing home, parking his car and stumbling into his condo. He's barely even shut the front door behind him when he's dropped to his knees, bracing a hand against the cold marble of his floor, tugging his cock out of his pants and jerking himself hard and fast until he spills into his hand, gasping raggedly like he's finished a long shift on a game.

It isn’t until later, when he's cleaning up his own come from the front foyer of his home, that he decides: it really is time for him to stop fucking around like this and ask Jonny out properly. Ask him out, get properly fucked once and for all, and then maybe he can get Jonny out of his system and can actually sit through a conversation with him without needing to jerk off.

___

 

"Hi," Jonny says, when Patrick calls him the next afternoon. "You need a table again?"

Patrick's heart kind of sinks at that, that Jonny thinks Patrick only wants to call him to get a table at his restaurant, for fuck's sake. So every single time Patrick's called him _has_ been for that, so what, it's not illegal to have that as a ready excuse just to be able to call and see Jonny. But that ends now, Patrick thinks. He's not going to make Jonny think he's only interested in his _food_ , what the hell.

"Sorry? What ends now?" Jonny asks, and Patrick realizes he's said that out loud.

"Shit. Nothing, dude, just forget about that. Listen, it’s not about a table this time."

"Not about a table."

"Yeah." Patrick wishes Jonny would stop repeating everything he says. "I just wanted to know – look, I know you're busy as hell, you probably don’t get any off days and stuff considering it's your restaurant and all that, but like. Maybe tonight, after you close. Do you wanna meet for a drink?"

There's a pause – a pause so long that Patrick begins to feel the pricklings of panic rising in his gut. Maybe he's misread the signals all this while, maybe Jonny really isn’t interested, maybe he isn’t even gay at all, fuck.

But then – "Yeah, yes, sure," Jonny says, sounding kind of tight and surprised, but also pleased, and the tight knot in Patrick's chest just unfurls, forcing out a breath he didn’t know he'd been holding. "A drink – yeah, I'd love that, Pat. Any place you have in mind?"

"Not really," Patrick confesses. "I was thinking, just any place you want to go, you know?"

"Just – the hotel bar, then?" Jonny suggests. "I mean, if you have some place better, I'm cool, just that the bar's usually pretty quiet and private, and I'm pretty beat at the end of the day." He laughs a little. "So if I need to unwind, I don't go too far out of my way."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Patrick says, and he's so relieved that Jonny's agreeing and isn't outright saying no or worse, laughing at him, that he's actually breathless, his next words coming out in a rush and tripping over each other. "What time tonight?"

"How's 11 pm for you? Too late?"

"No, it's fine," Patrick says, and he knows he still sounds a little breathless. "Off-season now, remember? I don’t have to be good."

Jonny laughs again. "Right. Meet you at the bar tonight then, and we'll see how bad you can get."

It sounds like a challenge, and Patrick's pretty sure he – and his dick – can rise (ha ha) to it. Then he stops that thought in its track, because he really needs to be able to actually have drinks with Jonny without his cock threatening to burst out of his pants.

"Sure," he replies, and hangs up after Jonny says bye, and the first thing he does is punch the air, like a stupidly happy teenager who's just succeeded in asking a girl out to the prom, without even a promise of getting laid at the end of the night.

___

 

He doesn’t get laid. That’s not a surprise.

The surprise is that he doesn’t mind.

He arrives at the hotel bar at 11 sharp, and slides into a chair at a small round table tucked into a corner, but facing the entrance so he can keep an eye on who's coming in. Jonny was right; the bar's quiet, the few people here on a weekday night carrying on conversations in a low soothing hum, barely heard above the jazzy stuff that's playing. And it's the Marriott, so of course it's one of those classy places where the bartender, the waiters, and more than a handful of the patrons probably recognize him, but pointedly slide their gazes away from him, and don't come up to him to ask for autographs or photographs. Patrick can see why Jonny likes this place.

Jonny comes in about fifteen past, when Patrick's already nursing a beer and wondering if he ought to maybe drop Jonny a text to let him know he's here, just in case Jonny forgot about their date – thing – whatever. He stands in the doorway for a moment while he looks around the bar to see if Patrick's there, and Patrick takes those few seconds to just look at him and remember how to breathe. It's the first time he's seen Jonny out of his chef's whites, and – holy shit – Jonny looks good, better than he'd expected. He'd somehow forgotten that Jonny wouldn’t be in his uniform – of course he wouldn’t be, that's the whole point of meeting him after work – and the way he looks hits Patrick like a puck to the gut. He's in dark jeans that hug his thighs and ass, and a blue plaid shirt, casually untucked and sleeves rolled up to show off strong forearms, all corded muscle. Patrick looks down at his own lighter blue plaid shirt and jeans. _Couple outfits, huh_ , he thinks, unbidden, a crazy sort of laugh huffing out from his mouth.

Jonny turns right then, as if he's heard Patrick laughing to himself like a crazy person, and Patrick does this really smooth move where he bends down to pretend to fiddle with his shoelace, but he does it too fast and cracks his forehead on the edge of the table. It wobbles dangerously and some of the beer in his mug sloshes out onto the dark wood.

"Ow, fuck," Patrick says, clapping a hand to his head and grabbing his mug with the other hand to steady it. That's exactly what he needs right now, when meeting one of the hottest guys his eyes have ever had the pleasure to see; a bruised forehead, a hand full of beer, and looking like a complete fool to boot.

"You okay?" Jonny's voice appears right next to him, and Patrick can see Jonny's shoes and jeans from under the hand on his forehead. _Fuck_.

"Yeah," he manages, taking his hand away and looking up at Jonny from under his lashes, hoping that the darkness of the bar will be enough to cover up whatever flush is getting ready to materialize on his face. "Yeah, I'm cool. Except for the fact that you saw that, because now I feel like an idiot."

Jonny doesn’t say anything to refute the idiot part, much to Patrick's indignation, but he does bend down so he's eye level with Patrick. Patrick freezes when Jonny lifts a hand to his forehead and gently strokes a thumb across it. It's just a light touch, but the feel of Jonny's calloused thumb across his skin makes it heat up much more than the knock had. "You'll be fine. It's not even red. I don't think you'll have a bruise. Man up."

"Marvellous," Patrick drawls. "Wouldn’t want anything to happen to my pretty face."

He expects Jonny to chirp him, to say something like _yeah, Candy Kane, so pretty you should let your face play hockey for you instead of your hands_ , because once on the phone Patrick had cracked some joke about him being pretty, and Jonny had just laughed dryly and said "Yeah pretty boy, you're a veritable Candy Kane", and that had just been so – bad, terrible bad, that Patrick had laughed himself silly for the next few minutes while Jonny audibly stewed away, instead of getting pissed at that disgusting nickname. Instead, when he flicks his eyes at Jonny, Jonny is staring at him, and Patrick has no idea what shows in his eyes, but Jonny is having that sort of intensity in his that he gets when he looks at a side of good beef, or a fillet of fresh fish, or something. He looks like he both wants to eat Patrick up or slice him up. Patrick hopes with all his might that it's the first, and he stares right back at Jonny, blinking his lashes slowly, until Jonny finally blinks to cut off the laser beam of his stare and snatches his hand away from Patrick's face. Patrick hadn’t even realized it had been there all this while.

"So," Jonny says after a pause, sliding into the chair opposite Patrick and waving a waiter over. "You need more beer?" He nods at Patrick's beer, dripping sadly all over the table and almost half of it gone.

"Nah," Patrick says. "Just get something for yourself. I'll need this cleaned up, though."

Jonny asks for a beer too, and for a busser to clean up the beer Patrick's spilt. When one appears and cleans up the table, Jonny asks for napkins, which are brought to him promptly along with his mug of beer. Jonny grabs one and motions for Patrick's hand, still wrapped around his mug.

"What?" Patrick says.

"Your hand," Jonny replies, patiently, tilting his head towards it.

Patrick holds it out palm up to Jonny, still not sure what he wants, and Jonny takes it gently by the wrist and begins cleaning it with the napkin. His fingers are long and thick, meeting around Patrick's wrist, and okay, Pat is small but not _that_ small, but he can't help but like the fact that Jonny is so much bigger than he is. Jonny is gentle but thorough, wiping his palm, then in between his fingers, only pausing to take new clean napkins from the stack he'd asked for. It's the first time Patrick has held hands with someone whom he wasn’t exclusively dating – even if holding hands is kind of stretching it, since Jonny is technically holding his wrist. But he's also rubbing all over Patrick's beer-wet hand as if he's trying to memorise every line carved into the palm, and Patrick feels like he wouldn’t mind this, could get used to it, if it was Jonny.

When Jonny is done, he sets Patrick's hand down and wraps another couple of napkins around Patrick's mug, so he can hold it without getting his hand dirty again. Patrick tries not to feel disappointed at the loss of Jonny's large warm hand on his.

"Uh, thanks," he says, when he manages to find his tongue. Jonny shrugs and looks down into his mug.

"No big deal."

And then – suddenly – there's silence. _Awkward_ silence. Truth be told, Patrick has no idea what to do. Jonny's just had his hands all over Patrick's face and hands, so why is he suddenly behaving like he doesn’t know what to do or say next? This guy is crazy, Patrick thinks. If this is a date, he's going about it all backwards.

"Is this a date?" he blurts out, and then wants to bite his tongue off at the look on Jonny's face, which is equal parts horrified and embarrassed and stunned. If Patrick wasn’t busy cursing himself, he'd be enjoying and marveling at the play of emotion across Jonny's features right now. He hasn’t really seen Jonny in any sort of emotional state apart from intense or relaxed.

Jonny's throat is working, his Adam's apple bobbing, like he wants to say something but can't quite do it.

Patrick sighs. He should have known it. Jonny probably isn’t even gay, he's probably been building up all this flirtation in his head, all Jonny wants is maybe just to be friends with Patrick Kane, his favourite Blackhawks player, and yeah, Patrick can do that. He's had enough encounters with straight men to know never to push his attraction to one. He's fine being just friends with Jonny. Jonny is cool and his food is like paradise, and Patrick may be more attracted to him than he's ever been to any man, but he's not an asshole. They can just be friends, and he'll still eat at Jonny's restaurant sometimes, maybe surreptitiously check him out when he's not noticing, even meet him for drinks like this, but it'll all be very dignified and bro-like. Patrick Kane is nothing if not a bro, gay or not.

"Yeah," Jonny says suddenly, interrupting Patrick's inner monologue, and wait, _what_. "If – if you want it to be. Then yeah."

"Wait, what," Patrick says dumbly. "So you are – "

"Gay, yeah," Jonny says quietly. "I thought you googled me."

"I did," Patrick says, mind whirring, trying to recall if he'd ever seen any indication anywhere that Jonny had ever said he was gay. "But – "

Jonny shrugs. "I'm not in the closet, but it's not something I parade about in interviews. But enough has been written about it that I thought you'd have picked something out."

"I really didn’t," Patrick says. "I must have missed it, or something, I don’t know. But – that's good to know. That's _really_ good."

Jonny smiles, and the taut tension in Patrick's chest magically dissolves into nothing.

"Yeah," he says, a touch too casually, but his foot nudges Patrick's under the table. "It's a date, then, I guess."

Patrick grins and nudges back. "Hold my hand then."

"What."

"That's what people do on dates, dude. Hold my fucking hand."

"Jesus," Jonny says, sounding exasperated, but there's more than a hint of fondness in his voice, and he reaches out and plucks Patrick's hand off the table, the same hand he was cleaning earlier. "This is not high school."

"Whatever," Patrick says firmly. "I've wanted to hold your hand and date you since the first day I saw you, and now that I can have it, I'm going to demand it."

"You're going to be impossible," Jonny complains, but his hand tightens around Patrick's. "How the fuck are you even a professional hockey player with thousands of fans? You'll never get any respect again if anyone sees you demanding to have your hand held like some sixteen year old."

"Whatever," Patrick repeats, twining his fingers around Jonny's, tangling them up, like he's afraid Jonny's hand will slip from his if he doesn’t do that. "You like it."

"Maybe," Jonny concedes, and lifts his mug to his lips to hide his smile.

___

 

They talk about everything and anything that night, slipping easily into conversation as if they've known each other all their lives, holding hands all the time – Patrick doesn’t think he can let go, even if he wants to, but when it's about 2 am Jonny catches sight of his watch and makes a disgruntled noise. "Shit. I think we have to go soon. I've got to be up at 7 and come back to the restaurant."

"Holy shit," Patrick says. "Why didn’t you tell me earlier?"

Jonny shrugs. "I kind of forgot the time," he says, and, well, yeah, Patrick can't blame him for that, because he'd forgotten himself too.

"What can I say, I'm just that riveting," he deadpans. Jonny rolls his eyes and snorts, but he can't quite hide the disappointment that flits across his face when Patrick finally, reluctantly, pulls his hand away from Jonny's to signal for the bill.

Patrick pays, because he's got this vague idea in the back of his mind that he ought to pay for it, since he was the one who asked Jonny out first. Jonny doesn’t fight him on it, but when they're outside at the hotel lobby and waiting for a cab, Jonny's hand solid and reassuring on the small of his back, Jonny says, "Next one on me, yeah?"

Patrick feels warm all over at the thought that there will be a _next time_. "Sure," he agrees, and Jonny smiles down at him, and Patrick leans just a little closer into his side.

He and Jonny share a cab home, because Jonny lives just ten minutes from him apparently, and when the cab pulls up at Trump Tower, Jonny leans over and gives Patrick a quick, chaste kiss. It's nothing more than a brush of lips against lips, nothing dirty or suggestive about it, but it's enough to make Patrick tingle.

"See you tomorrow, okay? I'll save you your usual table." Jonny says, and Patrick nods happily, stumbles out of the cab, utterly delighted that Jonny knows he'll be seeing him tomorrow at his restaurant, wants to see him again.

So – he didn’t get laid, didn’t even get a decent kiss out of it, but yeah. He's pretty damned satisfied, all in all.

___

 

It becomes a nightly routine – dinner at Jonny's restaurant, then drinks at the bar.

One memorable night three dates in (not that Patrick's keeping count, okay, he totally isn’t), they end up back at Jonny's condo at one in the morning, and Patrick can barely contain his delight when he sees the giant couch in the living room.

"Oh my god," he says, throwing himself onto it, feeling the bounce. "Dude, I have the exact same couch."

"You're kidding," Jonny says.

"Swear to god," Patrick says promptly. "I bought mine when I moved into my condo. Same fucking couch, same colour, same everything." He runs his hand along the soft leather admiringly. "This already feels like my home."

"You have no sense of shame or propriety, do you," Jonny says as he stretches himself out on the couch as well, draping himself over Patrick's legs.

"Maybe we're soulmates," Patrick says, with an exaggerated leer.

"Maybe you're really a sixteen year old girl in disguise, Candy Kane," Jonny suggests, and his mouth tilts in that wry little twist that makes Patrick can't help but lean over his face so he can press his lips to it and kiss it away.

Patrick counts this as their first real, proper kiss, because little goodnight kisses in the backs of cabs don't count. _This_ is what a kiss should be. It's soft at first, then Jonny sighs a little, his mouth opening sweetly under Patrick's, just enough for Patrick to slide him some tongue. Jonny's eyes flutter shut when Patrick's tongue curls around his, and he wraps one of his big hands around the back of Patrick's neck to pull him closer.

Shit. Jonny tastes like the whisky he'd drunk, and Patrick scrambles to climb on top of Jonny, hands fisting into Jonny's shirt, somehow managing to do all that without ever once leaving Jonny's mouth. He's breathing heavily by now, and the kiss is wet and hard. Patrick flattens his palms out against Jonny's chest, feels the bunching of his pecs under his hands, and Jesus, he has no idea why they haven’t done this sooner.

"You okay?" Jonny asks, voice a little hoarse, and Patrick realizes he's stopped kissing Jonny when he'd started running his hands up and down Jonny's chest. He looks down, and fuck, Jonny looks absolutely _perfect_ , lips reddened, and all Patrick wants to do is kiss him until both their mouths are numb.

"I'm great," he says, inanely, and kisses him again, and this time Jonny bites his lower lip, just enough to make it sting, before he runs just the tip of his tongue over it, and Patrick groans into Jonny's mouth.

"Your fucking mouth," Jonny growls, when they pull away for breath, and Jonny's gazing at his lips like he's entranced. "You don't even know – I mean, do you ever fucking see yourself, all you ever do is play with your tongue – "

"What," Patrick says, feeling a little too dizzy from their kiss to really think.

"Your tongue, and your mouth," Jonny repeats, leaning up to kiss him again, bite at his lips, and shit, if he keeps this up, Patrick's going to have swollen lips the size of Buffalo tomorrow, but he finds that he doesn’t even fucking care. "You have this stupid oral fixation, did you know that? You're always running your tongue over your lips, for _no fucking reason_ , you bite and suck on everything, on your fork, your fingers, even your stupid gloves – you do it all the time when we talk, and I just – I stare all the time at your mouth – "

"I didn’t know that," Patrick gasps.

"Fuck you, you know exactly what you do," Jonny says, and kisses him hard again, all tongue and teeth, and okay, Patrick's heard people say that he does have some sort of oral fixation, but it's such an unconscious habit by now that he doesn’t even think about it, but to hear how crazy it drives Jonny – well, it's worth all the chirping he's ever got about his pretty lips, Patrick thinks wildly.

Jonny pulls away from his lips then, and Patrick wants to whine, demand that Jonny put his mouth right back where it belongs, but then Jonny noses at his jaw and flicks his tongue over the pulse of his neck, and – okay, yes, his mouth can belong there too, Patrick has no problem with that. Jonny fits his mouth at the soft sweep of flesh where his neck curves into his shoulder, and Patrick shudders when Jonny sucks a bite into it. Then he shudders _again_ , because that movement makes his cock rock into Jonny's hip, and suddenly he's hyper aware of how hard he is, and the heavy weight of Jonny's cock pressing into his thigh.

Jonny keeps his hand on the back of his neck, but drops the other to the small of his back, pressing him down and holding him still seemingly without effort, keeping him exactly where he wants while he bites and sucks hickeys into Patrick's neck, Patrick gasping and wriggling all the while. When Jonny finally pulls away, Patrick says, "Now who's the one with the oral fixation, huh?"

Jonny's eyes are very dark when he looks up at Patrick, and Patrick can't imagine how his neck must look, but Jonny must have left it a fucking mess. Jonny leans up to kiss him again, but this time when he curves his hand around Patrick's neck, he presses his fingertips deep into a bruise he's left, hard and sudden, and Patrick's entire body _jerks_. His cock is trapped in his jeans, but even it makes a valiant effort to move, and Patrick moans, fingers clutching at Jonny's shirt again, probably wrinkling it beyond repair.

"Clothes," he gasps, wrenching his mouth away from Jonny's, "off, fucking off, _now_."

"Yeah," Jonny says, and his lips are already puffy, red and marked with Patrick's teeth. He looks wrecked already and they haven’t even started.

Somehow they manage to kick their jeans off, but they can't stop kissing long enough to take their shirts off all the way, and in the end they give up and just make out like desperate horny teenagers. Jonny's shirt is unbuttoned halfway, enough for Patrick to slide his tongue and then his teeth along the line of his breastbone, and Jonny's breath hitches when Patrick shoves his shirt up and gets a hand around his cock. Patrick can feel the heaving of Jonny's chest under his mouth.

"Fuck, get back up here," Jonny gasps, yanking Pat up by his collar, and fuck if it doesn't get Patrick hot as hell, being yanked about like that. Jonny presses his hand to Patrick's mouth. "Lick it," he orders, and his other hand tightens almost to the point of pain on Patrick's hip when Patrick does, running his tongue over Jonny's palm, getting it as wet as he possibly can. When he's done, Jonny lifts his wet palm to his own mouth and licks it too, as if he's trying to lick the taste of Patrick off it, and spits into it before he crushes their mouths back together and fumbles under their shirts to wrap his wet hand around both their cocks.

"Fucking – fuck," Patrick swears into Jonny's mouth, hips rocking forward into Jonny's firm hand, his cock sliding against Jonny's cock, a hot heavy weight against him. Jonny's not cut, so it's easy for him to rock back and forth against Patrick, rutting against him, but Patrick's dripping so much precome anyway that it's just wet enough for him to fuck back, just edging towards the slightest of pain. He squeezes his eyes shut, the cold airconditioned air of Jonny's home suddenly fiery hot, and digs his fingers into Jonny's biceps, feeling the muscles shift and roll under his hands as Jonny jerks them both off.

"Yeah, Pat," Jonny murmurs, breathing totally out of whack, "you can come, you know, you can come for me if you want, get your cock all wet for me so I can come on it too – "

Patrick's hips stutter as Jonny's hand tightens around them both, and then Jonny ducks his head and bites down on one of the hickeys on his neck, and the sharp sweet pain sets Patrick right off. He comes with a long moan, body shuddering apart under Jonny's hands, his cock pulsing over Jonny's cock like he'd wanted. He has just enough presence of mind to reach down and link his hand with Jonny's, the slick stickiness of his come easing the way. Jonny gasps when Patrick rubs his thumb over the head of his cock, wet with Patrick's come, and jerks as he comes as well, adding his mess to whatever Patrick's already made.

Patrick slumps onto Jonny's chest, both of them breathing hard.

"Okay," Patrick says finally. "That was – yeah. We should definitely do that again."

"Not now," Jonny says, and he's already sounding drowsy. Patrick feels bad for a moment – it must be 2 am by now, and of course Jonny has to be up early for the restaurant. "Not all of us are teenage girls, Candy Kane, we can't be having multiple orgasms."

"It's not my fault if you have no stamina," Patrick replies, and Jonny laughs, a quiet tired little sound.

"C'mere," he says, pulling at Patrick, and Patrick goes up so Jonny can kiss him again, and wow, who knew that Jonny would be _so_ into kissing?

Then Jonny grabs hold of Patrick's face with his come-wet hand, smearing it all over Patrick's cheek, and Patrick yelps, twisting away as Jonny laughs and laughs.

"Fuck you," Patrick says, getting off Jonny and onto the carpeted floor. He wobbles slightly when he stands, but manages to keep his balance, and he's pretty proud of himself, if feeling slightly foolish standing there in a wrinkled, stained shirt, naked from the waist down except for his socks, and come all over his stomach and thighs. But Jonny looks no different, so Patrick figures he's exempted from the looking stupid part. He looks down at himself mournfully. "I can't go home like this now."

"Stay here then," Jonny says.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'll lend you a tshirt tomorrow to go home in. Can we just take a shower now and then sleep before I pass out on this couch?"

Shower. Yes. A shower sounds good, and a warm post-coital shower with Jonny feels even better.

"Then what do I wear for tonight when I sleep?" Patrick says, trying to pout.

Jonny arches an eyebrow. "You don’t need any clothes for that."

"I thought you just said you were too tired for anything more," Patrick retorts.

As it turns out, Jonny _is_ too tired, but he's not averse to spooning naked with Patrick in his bed, tucking himself around Patrick so Pat can feel himself drowning in Jonny's scent and presence and the weight of his arm and leg slung over him.

Patrick falls asleep two minutes after Jonny's arranged them to his liking, and the next morning, when Jonny's alarm wakes him earlier than he wants, he doesn’t even mind, because he's too busy enjoying the sight of Jonny stumbling around and snapping at everything like a grumpy zombie until Patrick takes pity on him and wanders to his kitchen to get the coffee maker started while he showers.

___

 

Of course, Patrick and Jonny being who they are, it isn’t exactly something that can be kept quiet for long.

Patrick's just got home one afternoon, after spending another night at Jonny's, intending to shower and drive out to get his dry cleaning before heading to Jonny's restaurant again, when his phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his pocket, expecting it to be Jonny, but it's Sharpy.

_So you hooked yourself that hot chef. Good job for once. Abby says congrats. She says she didn’t think you could move that fast._

_Heard what from where?_ Patrick replies.

_Coy is not a good look on you, Peeks._

_Stop being a little shit and tell me what's going on._

_I don’t know, you should know what's going on in your love life better than me. Or Deadspin, for that matter._

Jesus. Patrick springs upright. Fucking Deadspin, really, they never leave him alone. Instead of replying to Sharpy, he goes to the Deadspin site on his phone, and of course it's the first thing he sees on the page:

 

 

**PATRICK KANE HASN'T LEARNED THE MEANING OF 'DISCRETION'. NEITHER HAS HOT NEW CHEF IN TOWN JONATHAN TOEWS.**

_It appears that everyone's favourite out-and-proud hockey player has found himself a new stick to handle!_

_Chicago Blackhawks winger Patrick Kane has been seen at Coup de Chapeau, the restaurant opened by Canadian Masterchef 2007 winner Jonathan Toews, every single day over the last two weeks._

_Nothing new there, you might think, Toews didn’t win all those Michelin stars for no reason – except for these photos, exclusively on Deadspin, that shows that Kane may be there for more than just the food._

_It helps, of course, that Toews is attractive, young, and also gay._

_Nevertheless, we ask: is it really wise for Kane to be flaunting his new relationship so openly, and so soon after the Hawks crashed out to the Kings in their last playoff series, thanks in no small part to Kane's appalling miss on an empty net goal?_

 

 

And below this shitty, _shitty_ article, there are photos of him with Jonny. Grainy photos, obviously taken with a phone, but clear enough to show that yes, that's definitely the both of them. There are pictures of them sitting at Patrick's table in Coup de Chapeau, heads bent close together as they laugh at some joke; at the bar in the Marriott, holding hands over the table; and worst of all, pictures of them as they stumble into the lobby of Jonny's building, lips glued together and Patrick's hand shoved down the back of Jonny's pants, splayed out on his ass.

Patrick's fingers are cold when the phone slips from his hand.

He really hadn’t thought this through when he started this with Jonny; all he'd wanted was to get into Jonny's pants, and then he'd wanted Jonny to like him and want to date him, and he'd got all that, but now he'd succeeded in exposing Jonny to an entire city, and he'd probably have paparazzi camping outside his restaurant, outside his _home_ , and it's not fair. Not fucking fair to Jonny to have to go through this crap, just because a Stanley Cup-winning hockey player for an Original Six franchise happened to take a shine to him.

And – since meeting Jonny he'd forgotten all about it – but the article brings it back to the forefront of his mind. The team's loss in the playoffs, his fucking miss – what the fuck are the fans and management going to think, when they see that Patrick Kane is out fucking about with his new boyfriend, completely and utterly remorseless about dumping their team out of the Stanley Cup?

In short: what the fuck was he thinking?

He looks down at his phone again, lying on the floor between his feet, and contemplates getting blind drunk again like he did just after the game – to make amends somehow, to show that yes, he truly was miserable, and he'd been blaming himself every day, would still be blaming himself, until Jonny came into his life and lifted him out of his funk – and it takes him just two seconds to realize that's not the answer.

The truth is, _Jonny_ really was the one who had brought him out of his misery and self-pity. Sharpy and Abby helped, they'd forced him out of it a bit, but Patrick knows that if he hadn’t met Jonny, he'd have moved home, wallowed all summer doing nothing, and eventually he'd have been bored enough to look at the videos and articles about him again. Or something would have happened to set him off, and he'd have gone out and got drunk off his ass outside, just to escape his four walls and his mind replaying his failure, and Deadspin would have fucked him even harder than this.

It's been Jonny – all Jonny, and Patrick would never have felt as calm or as happy without him, would never have had the confidence to think _yeah, next season, I can do it_ , and be able to forget what happened enough to actually be _happy_ for the first time all summer.

He picks his phone up from the floor. He needs to call Jonny and talk to him, and apologise for getting paparazzi at his home and for his face being splashed all over Chicago as Patrick Kane's new fucktoy.

Jonny's going to dump him, he's pretty sure, but before he does, he needs to apologise and thank Jonny. He'll tell Jonny that he was the one who made Patrick man up. Somehow, even though Jonny will dump him after this, Patrick's pretty sure Jonny's still the kind of guy who will appreciate Patrick being honest and upfront with him.

Before he calls Jonny though, he calls Sharpy.

"Who would have thought," Sharpy drawls when he answers. "Peeks, all grown up now."

"Am I getting traded?" Patrick says, cutting right to the chase. There's a long pause, so long that Patrick begins to feel iciness clawing in his gut.

Then Sharpy says, "What – no. No. Where the hell did you get that idea?"

"I – I don’t know."

Sharpy's voice goes soft. "Is this about that article on Deadspin? What they said about your game? Aw, shit, Pat. I didn’t tell you about it to get your head messed up again. I laughed at the stupid article! I thought you would laugh too!"

Patrick shrugs helplessly, even though he knows Sharpy can't see him. "They were right, though. I can't be going round kissing guys when I lost us the Cup."

"Peeks, winning or losing is a team effort. It isn’t all on you. No one blames you, you understand? Not me, not management, no one."

"Except the fans," Patrick says, his eyes prickling in that way that always heralds the onset of tears.

"Fans forgive quickly," Sharpy says, and his voice is gentler than Patrick's ever heard it, none of his usual chirping or sarcasm. "When we win the Cup next year, no one's ever going to remember this season."

Patrick will never admit this even under pain of death, but in that moment he loves Sharpy for saying 'when' and not 'if'.

"I'm really not getting traded?" he asks in a small voice.

Sharpy lets out a bark of laughter. "Traded? For what reason? For having a boyfriend? Peeks, management _knows_ you're bi. They know you've had girlfriends before, and you dated them all around town too. They know you've had your hookups with guys. They don’t care. No one in the team cares or will give you any shit about this, I promise you. The only shit you'll be getting is the chirping about how much dick you're getting, which, honestly, I don’t even want to think about."

"Okay," Patrick says. "I'm okay with the team then. But – Jonny?" His voice breaks at the 'Jonny', and he knows Sharpy's heard it, but to his credit, he doesn’t say anything about it.

"What about him?"

"This – it isn’t fair to him. He's got his face splashed all over the city now as my fucking boyfriend. People are going to be camped outside his _home_. He won't have any privacy. This isn’t what he signed up for, I'm sure. I can't do this shit to him."

"Pat, I'm sure he knew exactly what he was getting into, dating a Chicago Blackhawks player."

"Maybe he didn’t know how bad it would get."

Sharpy snorts. "One Deadspin article is not what I'd call _bad_. Calm yourself down. He's a celebrity too, or did you forget? He's used to media attention."

Patrick pauses. Yeah. That had somehow slipped his mind, in his panic.

"But – maybe he's not used to this kind. The invasion of privacy, personal life kind." He remembers how Jonny had told him he didn’t go around telling the world he was gay even though he wasn’t in the closet. That had to mean Jonny would hate having his personal life all over the Internet, right?

"He probably isn’t," Sharpy agrees. "But it isn’t exactly something that _any_ of us are used to, is it? I don’t like photographers taking pics of my wife and girls when they go out either."

"Okay," Patrick says. "You may have a point."

"I always do," Sharpy says, and he sounds so insufferably smug and back to being himself that Patrick wants to hang up on him, and he tells him so.

"I'm hanging up, asshole," he says, and then his phone beeps to signal a second line coming in. He lifts his phone away from his ear long enough to look at the caller ID, and "Chef Serious" is flashing on his screen. That's the name he saved Jonny's number under, giggling about it while Jonny frowned at him and looked every bit as serious as the moniker Pat had given him. "I really have to. Jonny's calling in."

"Ah, young love," Sharpy sighs, and hangs up before Patrick can even thank him.

It doesn’t matter. Patrick silently decides to take Sharpy out for a month and buy him whatever he wants to eat. Even if it's at that shitty taco place which Patrick absolutely hates, but which Sharpy seems to love, for some inexplicable reason.

___

 

Jonny is silent on the phone when Patrick tells him about the Deadspin article.

"Read it out to me," he says. He was in the kitchen when he'd called Patrick, and Patrick could hear the noises in the background, pots and pans clanking and food sizzling and some calling back and forth between the sous chefs. It's much quieter now, and Patrick thinks Jonny may have stepped out of the kitchen, into the alley behind the restaurant.

"What? Dude, no," Patrick says.

"Patrick. Read it. Now."

There's something absolutely dangerous and commanding in Jonny's voice when he gets like this. Most of the time, it makes Patrick go weak at the knees and horny as hell. Now, however, all Patrick can think of is that if Jonny had continued playing hockey, he'd probably have made a great captain. Or maybe a great bank robber, because no teller would dare to say no to that voice and attitude when he storms up to the counter and demands that they give him all the money in the bank. He's shocked to find a hysterical little laugh bubbling from his throat. His head is dizzy with the stress, and he's _laughing_.

"Pat?" And suddenly Jonny's dropped that commanding voice, and he sounds all worried and concerned and confused. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Patrick says, heaving a few great breaths to get himself under control. "Yeah, I am. But I'm not going to read it to you, and I don’t want you looking at or reading that fucking article."

It's Jonny's turn to laugh, an incredulous-sounding one. "Are you kidding me? If you don’t read it right now, I'm hanging up and finding it myself. It's about _me_ too."

That – yeah, okay, Patrick's got no excuse against that. So he sticks his phone on speaker, and reads the article, haltingly. By the time he gets to the end, he feels his throat thickening again, and he just knows he's going to cry before Jonny even speaks.

"Pat – "

"Don't," Patrick says, stumbling over the word. "It's okay, all right, you don’t have to say anything. This is entirely my fault, I should have been more careful, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Jonny." He chokes then, tears spilling over his cheeks, and he wipes roughly at them with the heel of his hand. "Look, I understand if you tell me you can't do this. I just – well, it was good while it lasted, for me. I'm just so sorry. I'll tell PR, make a quick statement to the press about how we've broken up, and they'll probably leave you alone after a while."

"Wait – what? Break up?"

"Yeah," Patrick sniffles. "That's easier for you, isn’t it? Don’t do anything, don’t say anything. I'll handle this mess, and I'm sorry I got you into it. Just – if I leave you alone, they'll leave you alone."

"You want to break up with me?" Jonny's voice is quiet, so quiet.

"No!" Patrick says. "I mean, yes, but no. No."

"Pat, you're not making any fucking sense right now."

"I don’t want to break up," Patrick says. "Look, I really like you, okay? This wasn’t just some dumb game, and you're not just a fucktoy, no matter what that fucking article said. I _really_ like you." And once he's started, everything comes pouring out of him, like he's broken some dam. "You're the hottest guy I've ever seen, and you cook like a dream, and your hands are like fucking magic, and the sex is like, amazing, even if we haven’t actually fucked yet, and you make me happy. You make me _happy_ , and I like you so fucking much, and it kills me that I've got to let you go, just because the fucking press will never leave you alone as long as you're with me."

"Oh," Jonny says. He sounds shell-shocked, and Patrick supposes he's got a reason to be, since he's basically just run his mouth at him and flung a trainload of emotions at Chef Serious Lack-of-Emotions Jonny, but he can’t let Jonny go without at least letting him know that this isn’t what he wants, that he does like Jonny, but he doesn’t have a choice, because Jonny deserves to live a peaceful life.

"Do you see what I mean now? You'll never have any privacy if you're with me. And you – you deserve better than that, Jonny, better than me." He chokes again, and determinedly bites the inside of his cheek to prevent any more sounds from escaping him.

"Yeah. Okay. I see it, I get it," Jonny's voice is surprisingly gentle. Patrick wants to fucking crawl somewhere and die, because he'll never get to hear Jonny like this again.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "I – "

"I like you too," Jonny interrupts.

"Okay, yeah, I can understand if you don’t want this too, and you want to break up now, like I suggested, because – what?"

"I like you too, Patrick," Jonny says softly. "I like you, so fucking much, and it's just fucking press, and I don't really care who sees us together, or whatever the media might print about us, and to be honest I'm pretty fucking happy they got pics of us kissing each other's heads off, because now everyone knows you're mine."

Patrick doesn’t know what to say – doesn’t know how to say whatever it is he needs to say. All he knows is, realization slowly dawning in his brain, is that hey, maybe he didn’t fuck this up after all. Maybe he isn’t going to have to lose Jonny. Maybe, oh god, maybe he can continue to be a Blackhawks player, and have Jonny, _and_ win the Stanley Cup next season, and fuck everyone who has a problem with that, seriously.

"I'm going to win the Stanley Cup for you next season," Patrick informs him, completely out of left field, and he can almost see Jonny nod and smile.

"I know you will," Jonny says, and it's something, really, that Jonny can somehow read his mind, know exactly what it is he's trying to say. If they were on the ice together, Patrick thinks, still a little crazily, they'd be such a great team. They'd play the same line, and they'd always be able to sense where the other was and what each other needed, and play the most perfect passes, and get all the assists and goals, and be called 'Kane and Toews' in every single interview about the Hawks.

But in this world, Jonny can't play hockey, but he's the best damn chef in the country, Patrick is certain of that. And he'll make the best damn boyfriend.

That, to Patrick, is possibly worth more than the Cup.

"Are you feeling better now?" Jonny asks, and Patrick mumbles a yes.

"Just so we're clear here – we're not breaking up. I don’t want to, and neither do you," Jonny says.

"Yeah, no, forget that," Patrick says, laughing a little through his tears. "I'm sorry, I was stupid. I should have trusted you."

"Yeah, you should have," Jonny says easily. "But I always knew you were dumb, so I suppose you can be forgiven."

Patrick squawks indignantly, forgetting to be upset.

"I'll see you tonight," Jonny says warmly, like nothing's changed. "You wanna come over again? I don't give a shit about photographers, I've got a doorman. But if you feel weird about it – "

"Do you want to come to my place instead?" Patrick asks. "You've never seen it. And – I'll even let you stay over."

"Okay. Want me to bring anything? Food, or wine, or whatever?"

"Fuck the wine," Patrick says. "Bring lube and condoms."

There's a loud thud on the other line that tells Patrick Jonny's dropped his phone on the pavement, and Patrick can't help but laugh, all the stress and worry and anxiety churning in his gut magically evaporating.

___

 

When Jonny arrives near midnight, Patrick wastes no time in grabbing his shirt once he's kicked the door shut, and slamming Jonny into it. He has to tiptoe to kiss Jonny when they're standing, and Patrick has lived an entire life of chirping about his size and height, but when he's with Jonny, he likes it. Jonny helps him out, bends down to meet his mouth, and his hands come around to grasp Patrick's ass and hoist him a bit to take the weight off his toes.

Patrick finds it pretty damned hot that Jonny can hoist him so easily. He finds himself wondering if they could fuck right here. Jonny could lift him up, those arms bulging around him, and he'd hook his legs around Jonny while they fuck, until Patrick will be feeling it in his spine for _days_. He has no doubt that Jonny has no problems doing it that way, and his cock is already half-hard just thinking about it as he kisses the breath out of Jonny.

"Were there photographers?" he finally asks, when he gets enough self-control to pull back from Jonny. "Downstairs?"

Jonny looks kind of dazed from Patrick's enthusiastic welcome, but he nods. "Some, I think. But I told you, I don’t care."

"You don't care and you don't mind that you'll probably have your photo on the gossip pages of every major newspaper and tabloid in this city tomorrow morning?"

"No," Jonny says firmly. His hands grasp Patrick's ass more firmly, and Jesus, he's got lovely big hands. "I am perfectly okay with Chicago knowing you're mine."

"Someone's possessive," Patrick says, but it comes out more breathless than he'd intended.

Jonny pushes him gently away and drops his hands from Patrick's ass, but before Patrick's got time to feel disappointed he's digging in his bag, pulling out a bottle of lube and a large box of condoms. He dumps the bag on the floor right there and waves the items in front of Patrick's face.

"I know I haven't been here, and I'm sure you want to show me around your stupidly expensive Trump Tower apartment, but if you don't mind, the first thing I want to see is your bedroom."

Patrick swallows. "Bedroom. Yeah. Yeah, we can do that."

"Lead the way," Jonny says.

___

 

They get their clothes off in record time – Patrick doesn’t even know where they are, strewn all over the place on the route from front foyer to bedroom, probably – but what matters is the here and now, where Patrick is lying naked on his stomach on his bed, body curled over one of his giant fluffy pillows, and Jonny is fucking two fingers into him.

Jonny's fingers are fucking _perfect_. Long and thick and rough with callouses, souvenirs of all the cuts and burns and knife-handling he'd got on his rise to being one of the world's youngest Michelin-starred chefs. He'd used more lube than Pat's used to, but Patrick doesn’t mind, has no objections to the feeling of being dripping wet and open for Jonny. He turns his face into the pillow and gasps loudly when Jonny tilts his fingers down, just skimming the edge of his prostate, and Jonny is a fucking _tease_ because he's been doing this for what feels like far too long, stroking around his prostate but not applying any pressure to it, and Patrick's cock is so hard it's leaking against his stomach with every movement of Jonny's fingers.

"You want another?" Jonny asks. "Can you take one more?"

"Fuck you, I can take however many you want, as long as you - _ah_ \- hurry it up," Patrick says, muffled into his pillow.

"But I like seeing you like this," Jonny says, the _fucking tease_. "I want to make it last, so you'll beg for me, beg me for more – "

Patrick's had enough. He reaches a hand between his legs, and before Jonny can ask what he's doing, he runs a finger down his balls until it reaches his hole, stretched around Jonny's fingers. He's so wet there that it's easy to shove his finger in, right between Jonny's. It makes him choke out a gasp, because he'd probably done that faster than he should have, and the stretch is more than he'd expected, but it feels good. He feels good, and he tells Jonny so.

"I can so fucking take it," he grits out when Jonny traps his finger between both of his, and begins ever so slowly to move them around inside him. "I can take another, I'll show you – " and he's going to work his index finger in alongside the ones already in him when Jonny groans and pulls his out entirely, taking Pat's hand with him.

"You're going to be the fucking death of me," Jonny says, and then Patrick hears the welcome crinkle of a condom packet being torn open, and he flips over onto his back so he can watch Jonny roll it onto his dick and spread more lube over his cock.

"I want it like this," Patrick demands, "I want to see your face while you're fucking me."

"Jesus Christ," Jonny says, looking pained, and he's clutching the base of his cock as if he's afraid he'll blow his load right now. "Stop talking like that, or I'm going to go off before you get anything inside you."

"Then hurry the fuck up," Patrick says, almost yelling, and finally - _fucking finally_ \- Jonny lines the head of his cock up with his hole, and presses in.

Fuck. It's so good, Jonny's big cock opening him slowly in increments, so much better than his fingers, so much fuller. It's all Pat can do to hold on to Jonny's shoulders, feel his traps bunching up underneath his fingers, as he slides in until he's bottomed out, thighs flush against Patrick's ass. "God," Jonny breathes out, and when he looks down at Patrick his eyes are blown, their colour totally black rather than the chocolate brown they always are. "Pat, god – you feel fucking fantastic."

Patrick arches his back a little, gasping when the movement presses Jonny's cock deeper inside him. "Fuck me already, you shit," he says, and Jonny does just that, dropping his head to tuck it into his neck as he pulls out a little and then drives right back in, over and over, short sharp thrusts that make Patrick's brain short-circuit.

He's making a lot of noise, he knows; he's never been able to be quiet during sex, and when Jonny suddenly stops he lets out an honest-to-God whine, but Jonny simply shifts position, leaning back up, his powerful thighs flexing under Patrick's ass, and lifts him up into his lap. His thighs are so fucking big, all pure muscle, it's like Patrick is straddling a mountain. He doesn’t mind, though, not when this position drags him down further on Jonny's cock, and it's right there, just where Patrick needs it.

"Fuck," he says, and now it's his turn to press his face into Jonny's neck, teeth latching on at the patch of skin over his pulse. "Fuck me, Jonny, god, don’t you fucking stop – " and Jonny pulls his ass open with his big hands so he can fuck in deeper, and it's the hottest thing Patrick has ever felt in his life. He's limp in Jonny's lap, really, while Jonny is doing all the work, quads tensing up under Patrick, as he fucks Patrick ruthlessly, but he likes this, likes hanging off Jonny and letting Jonny just use him with every ounce of power his perfect body possesses. His dick is sliding in the divot of Jonny's abs as they move, precome and sweat slicking the way, and it's not going to take long for Patrick at all.

"Jonny, I'm, I'm fucking gonna like, explode," he tells Jonny incoherently, and Jonny, the asshole, fucks into him with devastating precision until he hits his prostate, and then he just holds Patrick down with his hands still spreading his cheeks open while he grinds his hips against Pat, rubbing the head of his cock over his sweet spot.

Patrick – Patrick fucking _explodes_ , like every porn cliché ever, his dick spurting onto Jonny's abs without even being touched, fireworks lighting up behind his closed eyelids, all the rest of it, while he shouts Jonny's name. He thinks, dimly, that if any of the neighbours could hear them, they're going to know that some guy named Jonny just gave Patrick Kane the most mindblowing orgasm of his life.

"Come on, Jonny," he says, when he's finally floated back to himself, "come on, babe, I know you wanna give it to me – "

Jonny lets him drop onto the bed, and he's hardly made any noise throughout the whole thing apart from some very laboured breathing, but he grabs Patrick's legs behind the knees and shoves them back, and then fucks in hard. It doesn’t take him long either; Pat isn’t even beginning to feel sensitive yet when Jonny's hips and breathing stutter in tandem, and Jonny is coming, Patrick can see it, his face red and his eyes scrunched shut and his mouth open on a soft, low groan, while the mark Patrick had bitten into his neck earlier is blooming into quite a spectacular hickey.

"Jesus, Pat," Jonny says, slumping on top of him. " _Jesus_."

He's still inside Patrick, and Patrick doesn’t try to move him away – as far as he's concerned, Jonny's cock can stay inside him forever. He tells Jonny so, sleepily, when Jonny begins to make some noises about needing to get up and shower. Jonny, of course, simply pulls out of him, as slowly as he can, but it still makes Patrick wince at how empty he feels. Contrary asshole.

"Shower with me," Jonny says, standing at the side of the bed and holding a hand out to Patrick, looking remarkably self-possessed for someone who'd just come his brains out.

Patrick grumbles and whines and complains, but he lets Jonny drag him out of bed and to the ensuite, where Jonny spends some time judging him for his black marble tub and fixtures, before shoving him into the shower stall.

Jonny washes him, runs a soapy finger over his hole to check, and Patrick shivers, not from pain but from oversensitivity.

"You okay?" Jonny asks.

"More than okay," Patrick says, dimpling, and it seems perfectly normal to stand on tiptoe and kiss Jonny there, under the hot spray of his shower.

"Hey," Jonny says, when they disengage, blinking the water out of his eyes. "Do you remember, when you were in the Junior Flyers?"

"Yeah, kind of?" Patrick says, staring up and wondering why Jonny's asking him such a random question out of the blue. "I mean, I played in so many teams when I was young, I sometimes couldn’t even remember what team I was on. My parents had to keep track for me."

"I doubt you remember much of them. But I remember you."

"What are you talking about?"

"I remember how confident you were. You walked into the dressing room, in fucking flip flops, with your blond curls everywhere, and you were tiny. And I stared at you and wondered, how the hell can you play? And then you went out on the ice, and you fucking _owned_ it. You beat me in points, every single game."

Patrick's mouth drops open. "We – what? Jonny, what the fuck."

Jonny smiles down at him, and it's the way he smiles, so warm and gentle, that sends Patrick's stomach doing somersaults. "Yeah. I was there, playing with you. We were just, what, 13 then? 14? I know you don’t remember me, but I remember you. I remember looking at you, and thinking: this kid's going to be an NHL superstar one day. And I was right."

"Jonny," Patrick says in wonder. "Why didn’t you ever tell me, when we met?"

Jonny shrugs. "I guess I was waiting for the right time. I didn’t want you to think I was, you know, trying to curry favour with a Blackhawks player like you, or something." He claps his hand over Patrick's mouth to silence his protests. "My point is – you were so good back then, Pat, and you were only 13. You're great now, and you can be even greater. Fuck whoever doesn’t think so. You're going to go into the season, guns blazing, and you're going to win the fucking Cup, again. And I guess I can say this now, but I think I liked you from the moment I saw you. I just didn’t ever think we would meet again, when I stopped playing."

Patrick doesn’t know what to do or say. He simply tiptoes again to kiss Jonny until he's out of breath.

___

 

When the season starts, the Hawks play only their first game at home before they're on the road for almost two weeks, playing a stretch of five away games. Jonny isn’t able to make it for the first home game – there's some food writer coming from Seattle to Coup de Chapeau to interview him that night – but he promises Patrick he'll go to the next home game for sure, after he's back from his road trip.

"I'll save you a ticket," Pat says.

They start off the season with a bang – a 2-0 win at home over the Senators for the first game, a 3-1 win over the Blues on the first game of the road trip. They stumble at the next game though, and lose 4-3 to the Stars at the American Airlines Centre, but Patrick doesn’t brood on it, because he knows Jonny's watching every single game back home. They win the next three games, and fly back to Chicago high on their three-game win streak. Patrick's had five goals and eight assists from this stretch of games. He's feeling pretty fucking high.

"I scored every goal for you," he tells Jonny over the phone the night before he returns to Chicago. He feels sad, all of a sudden; he hasn’t seen Jonny for nearly two weeks, and by the time he reaches home, Jonny will be at the restaurant, and he'll be so tired he'll fall right asleep, which means he probably won't get to see Jonny until the day after that, and only for a short while before Jonny has to leave for Coup de Chapeau.

"I know," Jonny says, and Patrick can practically hear him smiling over the phone. "Keep up the good work, baby. I'll see you when you're home."

"See you soon," Pat says. "Love you."

Bicks, who'd been in his room when Jonny called and was ostensibly playing a game on Patrick's PSP, snorts with laughter once Patrick hangs up. "How are you not diabetic yet?"

Patrick flips him off. He's used to the guys teasing him about Jonny by now, but it's still ingrained in him to protest. Well whatever, fuck them, they're just jealous they don't have hot, sexy chef boyfriends to call them on the road every night to say _goodnight_ and _I love you_.

Bicks gets up to go back to his own room, but before he leaves, he puts on a simpering, sickeningly high-pitched voice. "Goodnight, Patty babe," he trills. "I love you, Lil Peekaboo, oh, I'm dying without you to warm my bed at night, I love watching you score all your goals for me, so hot, Peekaboo…"

Patrick flings a pillow at his head, which he ducks easily, and he laughs as he slips out of the room.

___

 

Once they're back in Chicago and gearing up for their home game against the Wild, Patrick texts Jonny quickly to remind him about the ticket for him at the front office, and gets back a _Good luck, babe, it's showtime!_ in return.

He can't stop smiling, not even when it's time for puck drop and he's out on the ice, trying not to smile and to look fierce and intimidating like he really wants to beat the shit out of everyone on the Wild and score a million goals against them.

He does score, eight minutes into the first period, and he pumps his fists in the air as his teammates jump on him, and then he skates to where he knows Jonny is sitting, and scans the crowd for him. He misses him at first, because Jonny's wearing red, and well, the entire crowd is in red too, but Jonny stands when he skates near and gives him a little wave.

And then Patrick's heart leaps into his throat, because Jonny's wearing a Blackhawks jersey. Not just any jersey, but one with the number 88 on the sleeves, and Jonny turns his back to Pat, to show the name KANE emblazoned across his shoulders and the 88 below that. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder when he turns back, grinning widely, as if to say _see that?_ And Patrick gives him a thumbs up before he skates away again, his blood positively thrumming in his veins, seeing Jonny in his jersey, Jonny with _his_ name across his back, like he's fucking branded as Patrick's.

Patrick scores four goals. He absolutely decimates the Wild that night.

Later, when they're finally home after celebrating, Patrick makes Jonny fuck him with the jersey still on.

Yeah. Patrick is pretty fucking happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Coup de Chapeau - it means hat trick in French, but coup can also mean 'cut'.
> 
>  _Bonne nuit, je suis content que tu sois venu_ \- Goodnight, I'm glad you were here.
> 
> The part where Jonny talks about them being in the Junior Flyers is from this interview [here](http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/page/maginterviewtoewskane/chicago-blackhawks-patrick-kane-jonathan-toews-nhl-odd-couple-espn-magazine).


End file.
